


eighteen degrees and eighty miles from home

by Mia_Zeklos



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: ??? it's a mix between both tbh, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cults, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Smut, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Investigations, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reunions, Running Away, brief but casual mentions of potential suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:41:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25116316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mia_Zeklos/pseuds/Mia_Zeklos
Summary: Prompt: "Ben Solo ran away from home and faked his death at a young age. Now he’s 31 and he meets the love of his life, Rey. She invites him to her work party, but what he didn’t know was that she works with his mother who thinks he’s dead."
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 25
Kudos: 67
Collections: Ijustfellintothissendhelp





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Exactly what it says on the tin! Kind of got really dark somewhere in the writing process, so please do mind the tags as they'll be heavily leant into sooner rather than later. This is just a prologue; I'll start up with the actual first chapter tomorrow as soon as I pretty it up a bit, but I was really eager to get this started, so here's a quick preview. ;D
> 
> Title taken from [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi8Y2GQxOfg).
> 
> Hope this is enjoyable and, as always, feedback is most welcome!

It’s ridiculously easy once Ben fully puts his mind to it. Disappearing is as simple as his uncle had told him – you don’t have to actually _perform_ magic for people to believe that the impossible has happened. You just need to be really quick about tricking them.

He’d packed the clothes that he can’t do without hours ago and had hidden his entire luggage behind the elephant slide in the nearby playground. It’s not much – the clothes in question, so few that his parents are unlikely to notice that they’re missing, and a toy soldier small enough to fit into his back pocket; a souvenir that no one would bother looking for, and too well-loved to be left behind. No one ever goes there, especially not late at night, and he should be safe.

That had been the least difficult part of his plan.

He had spent some time on the next part, too, already – he’d dragged himself face down across the thick carpet on his bedroom floor; had dirtied and meticulously placed on that same carpet, then burned, a pair of men’s shoes in order to leave tracks behind. He’d even cut his hand and dripped some blood here and there to create the illusion of struggle. There would be even more blood for the last detail and he’d have to stop the bleeding soon enough after that to not rise suspicion – or lead the inevitable police investigation to him – but it’s worth it.

He wouldn’t want his parents to find him dead – the guilt at the thought alone is too much for him to bear – but he does want them to believe that he’s gone for good. They won’t miss him; everything about the past few months had shown him that much, after all of their whispered conversations that had later escalated into fights, all the walking on eggshells and, finally, the announcement that he were to leave his home for a good long while as soon as the new school year rolled around in September. The realisation doesn’t necessarily make him want to _die_ , either, but he does want to vanish without a trace, and such a possibility has already sprung up, just waiting for him to reach out and take it. It’s now or never.

Ben steels himself and climbs up the ladder he’d propped against the house’s facade, takes a quick look at the sum of what his life had been so far, then pulls back and slams his fist against his bedroom window with as much strength as he can muster.

With the deafening crash of splintering glass breaking through the eerie calm of the city at night, Ben Solo disappears from the world.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I said that this was going to be edgy and weird, I do hope you guys took that seriously, because here we go.  
> As always, feedback is most appreciated!

It’s been hours.

At first, Ret had convinced herself that it can’t all be as bad as it feels – at least it isn’t raining – but as the day had dragged on, she’d started quietly praying for any reprieve from the heat, no matter how inconvenient and wet it is. Some water would do her a world of good; she’d grown thirsty a long time ago because the prick who had stolen her car hadn’t even had the decency to throw her water bottle _out_ of it before dashing off.

She’d been lucky, really, all things considered. At least she’d had the foresight to bring her wallet and phone with her, so none of her valuables had gone missing – aside from her transport, that is.

She hadn’t seen another soul drive by since then, which is yet another item on her list of grievances. She’d ignored her GPS and its suggestions at the sight of a small road that she could use as an alternative to the highway and she’d paid for it thrive over already, and yet—

And yet, she feels strangely unchained.

She can’t remember the last time, if ever, when she’d been able to indulge in this sort of solitude. Nothing and no one around for miles, no service to speak of, no real contact with another human being – it’s _glorious_. If she’s had any provisions to rid herself of her body’s needs, it would have been downright perfect in a forbidden sort of way; a nightmare of a situation that she knows she shouldn’t be able to enjoy at all.

By the time she hears the faint purr of an engine – too small to be a car, but it’s another person, at least – she’s half-ecstatic and half-disappointed.

“You lost, kid?”

The man she faces when she whips around is nothing like she’d expected, with his shoulder-length silvery hair and clothes that look like they’re worth more than anything she’s ever owned. He has no luggage at all – not even a backpack – and his piercing blue eyes are far too alert for him to have been on the road for too long. A local, then.

A local to _what_?

“Robbed,” she replies. Honesty might be her best option, considering that she has next to no cash and she doubts that this guy accepts debit cards for whatever service he’s about to offer her. “In broad daylight.”

“Daylight around these parts doesn’t make much of a difference.” He rather sounds like some of that is his fault and doesn’t feel particularly bad about it; Rey might have bristled at the notion if she’d been a little less dependent on any passersby willing to indulge her. The road had been entirely empty so far; who could tell when the next opportunity would come by? “Not much of anyone to hear you when you call for help.” As if suddenly realising just how unhelpful he’s being, he pats the scarce free space on the back of his seat. “Do you want a ride? I’m going home, but we’ve got plenty of room. One of my boys might be able to take you back to the city tomorrow.”

“That’s not where I’m going.” She’s not really in a position to refuse any help, Rey knows, but she’s going to have an outrageously late start to this field trip as it is. “I’m headed for Supremacy.”

“That’s no place for a girl like you,” the man says, though the preaching tone is clearly mostly for show. He’d had the time to perfect the sound of it, she supposes, with the sons that “my boys” seems to suggest, and she tries to calm her racing heart down some. He looks dangerous, but she’s on the verge of being out of options – she doesn’t know how much longer she’ll have to walk to get to Supremacy on her own without food or water and the desert gets cold in the night; she’d know that better than anyone. “But I’m sure they’d be happy to help. Hop on.”

Leia would kill her for this if she’d known, Rey is sure, but not unlike her search for help, that doesn’t make much of a difference in this place either – Leia isn’t here.

~.~

The idea had been bad from the start. If it hadn’t been for Rey’s weakness for children and her boss’s painful experience with the same subject matter, they would have likely deemed it a risk too great for everyone involved and just tried harder to involve the local law enforcement, but in the end, the situation had seemed too dire to ignore.

Children had been disappearing from Hanna City for years now. For a long time, the cases had been few and far between; disconnected enough that no one had thought to piece them together. Leia’s son had been one of the earlier ones, twenty years ago. It had baffled both the Solos and the police with how quickly the trail had gone cold and, although there had been sound evidence that the boy had been taken out of his room alive, no one had ever seen him again. Eventually, little Ben Solo had become one of the many cold cases with a rather similar scenario and no resolution. Despite the time that had passed and despite the fact that she’s unlikely to ever say it out loud, Leia had never quite given up and had subsequently channelled her efforts into helping out others who had found themselves in the same position.

Rey had volunteered herself for the case immediately. _The Resistance_ is a newspaper, not a detective agency, but she’d seen far too many instances of an issue only being addressed through the media to believe that a proper, if unprofessional, investigation would be of no help at all. Her own upbringing, tossed from one caretaker to another like a forgotten suitcase at an airport that no one quite knows what to do with, had only served to convince her further – if there were children involved, she would be there, even if it would mean getting herself into a town with a fame as terrible as Supremacy happened to have.

By the time they slow down in front of a house – large and narrow and planted right next to the road with no other sign of nearby civilisation – Rey is grateful for the distraction. Supremacy is a problem for tomorrow, hopefully; for now, the sun is going down and she’s in desperate need of rest.

The house does look roomy, she can give Ren – her newly acquired companion on the road – that at least, even if it’s as windswept and unpainted as she’d imagined. The fact that it’s smack dab in the middle of nowhere is worrying, but she’d expected nothing more and as the man navigates his bike through the gate held up by the makeshift fence, Rey becomes acutely aware of the raised voices right around the corner and can’t help but stand on edge. She knows neither of them, but the manner of speech is a painfully familiar one.

“Don’t talk back at me, boy,” one of the men – much older than the other – growls through gritted teeth. “If I say you’ll work with him, then that’s what you’re going to do. I don’t care about your petty fights.”

“Leave the kid alone, Snoke,” Ren offers lazily, though there’s a warning to it. “He’s not one of yours anymore.”

The stranger’s retort dies on his lips as soon as his eyes land on her.

“I’d prefer not to discuss that in front of visitors.”

“Oh, she’ll only stay a night or two and she’ll be on her way, right, sweetheart? No need to be wary. Kylo,” Ren waves the younger man over, the way he calls his name placating as if he’s speaking to a mildly irritated dog, “why don’t you find the lady a room? I’m sure there was a free one somewhere on the second floor.”

“Sure.” Kylo – one of the sons Ren had mentioned, Rey supposes, judging by the similar ways they’re built and the long, wavy hair – pitch black instead of silver – tears himself away from the argument without another look at his interlocutor. “Follow me.”

Well, she’d got this far, hadn’t she? Nothing of what she’s heard so far sounds even remotely comforting, but she offers a quiet thanks anyway. What else could she have hoped for? No one with a home like this in a place like this could possibly be up to anything good, despite Ren’s friendly demeanour.

“This way,” Kylo grunts and Rey is quick to catch up, lest he leaves her behind. “You’re just staying the night, yeah?”

“Hopefully.” She hadn’t seen anyone else in here yet, so she might as well try and bring up her situation to him. “My car got stolen about three hundred miles out of Hanna City when I came out of it for about five minutes.” To take pictures, of all things; she spares him that bit of information. The last thing she needs is more ridicule than she’s been dosing herself in all afternoon. “Your father was generous enough to offer me shelter.” A scoff is the only response she gets in return and going forwards is less intimidating than asking which part of what she’d said is amusing to him, so she continues. “I’m Rey, by the way. Rey Solana.”

“Kylo Ren.” He’s quiet for a moment. “That’s a pretty name. Not from Chandrila, are you?”

 _Perceptive_. Rey isn’t sure how much she likes that. It’ll be easier to decide once she sees if he can clock her accent. Despite the primitive look of everything here, there’s still hope for her if the inhabitants are well-travelled. Few people are well-travelled enough to know that Jakku even exists, thankfully, but she’s always better off not mentioning her background regardless. “No, but it’s been a home to me for a few years now.” There are few things better than returning the favour, so, “ _You’re_ a local, though. Unlike your name.”

Honestly, even with all the travelling she does on the job, it’s not a naming custom she can pinpoint. They’re still in Chandrila, in theory, though the borders had become a little more elusive once the monolith of the Republic – an alliance of peace and supposed economic prosperity for all nations on the continent that had eventually almost merged the nations in question with one another about thirty years ago – had taken over everything and while his manner of speaking reminds her vaguely of Leia and everyone else in the better-off parts of Hanna City, he also sounds like someone who’s spent a good while trying to train himself out of it. His looks, when he turns on the lights in the long corridor they’d entered, are neither here nor there too – everything, from his dark eyes to the tattoos scattered all over what’s visible of his pale skin, seems timeless in a way she hadn’t experienced since leaving Niima Outpost and all its directionless citizens behind. It only serves to give her the impression that trying to bind the image of him to a place where he would belong is futile. _He_ is a place, or feels like one; a place from a dream or a nightmare or a memory, distant and familiar and somehow still unquestionably close all at once.

“I’m from nowhere,” he says at last, the sharp words softened by his tone. It feels like a warning, almost; like she should know better than to make guesses. It’s quite likely that it is, here where the shadow of Supremacy and everything happening there is long and dark. “And right now, you’re nowhere too. Where are you headed? We’ll all have to lay low for at least a week in the light of recent events,” a gesture towards the windows and the yard below, as if that explains anything at all, “but I can take you where you need to be after it all blows over.”

 _A week_? There’s no way she can wait that long; especially not in the lair of something between a biker gang and a drug cartel. The fact that he’s so open about _lying low_ only makes her more bewildered. “I appreciate the thought, but it’s really no trouble. I can just call,” she falters – there’s no one she can call because apparently no one around these parts believes in cell phone towers, “I can hitch a ride the next time someone passes by. This road is parallel to the highway. I’m sure it’s not always as deserted as it was today.”

Kylo is already shaking his head by the time she’s finished talking, his pinched expression the first sign of discomfort she’s seen from him. It’s unsettling, given how unruffled he had been so far. It’s clear that they don’t get visitors often, so he’s likely unused to being the bearer of bad news, but he soldiers through it anyway. “No one is going to come, Rey. No one has come this way in years. At least no one you want to be in a car with.” She wonders, idly, if he’s including himself in that equation. It wouldn’t surprise her if he is. “I’m not sure why no one told you or how you even got here – the turn from the highway is closed, usually – but if you’re trying to get to the next big city—”

“I’m not,” she cuts him off quickly. She’d meant to approach the topic with more delicacy, but there’s nothing delicate about any of this. _Out with it, then._ “That’s exactly why I ended up here. I’m trying to get to Supremacy as soon as possible. It’s —a work project.”

The grimace that follows is far more expressive than what his father had offered when she’d mentioned her destination. “Unless your boss wants you dead, I really doubt that. What do you _do_ , exactly?” He sounds too uneasy with the prospect of this trip than any perfect stranger has the right to be, but Rey doubts that pointing it out would do much good. Everything about him feels too overwhelmingly intense to accept critique of any kind. “No respectable business has any grounds there.”

“That’s, uh.” There’s really no way to say this that doesn’t sound bad and, worse, like she’s looking for trouble without having the faintest idea what she’s dealing with. “That’s rather the point. I’m a journalist and there was a case that my newspaper got involved with in Supremacy, months ago, but there was no resolution the police refuses to open an investigation—”

“Then they’re smarter than anyone at your newspaper is,” he cuts her off unceremoniously, his face a perfect mask of cold, uncaring resolution. It _is_ a mask, though, and it’s fraying at the edges, as much as she’s sure he’d try to deny it.

“There are children involved,” Rey offers at last, already somewhat desperate. It’s a cheap shot, but she works in a news outlet; she’s good at those, as long as they make people let their guard down or do what she asks. Right now, she’d like a bit of both.

With a last moment of stubborn determination, she can see the man soften by a fraction.

“We really do have to lay low for a week,” he says, voice bordering on apologetic as his expression takes on an oddly detached note. Something niggles at the back of her mind, a suspicion that she can’t quite place just yet, and Rey carefully files it away for later. “But once it’s safe, I’ll take you to Supremacy. I can even take you back to Hanna City afterwards.”

“I would appreciate it.” She doesn’t like just how relieved she sounds, but it’s a battle with herself that she’s ready to lose if it means getting back to any semblance of civilisation. “Thank you.”

His sullenness retracts by a little. Somehow, it makes him look even less encouraging as he opens a door and urges her in with a wave of his hand. “Don’t thank me yet.”

~.~

The morning, when it comes, brings disorientation so violent that it takes Rey a good few minutes to remember where she is.

The room is spacious and mostly empty, barring the bed, a nightstand and a small dresser in the corner. It screams ‘guest bedroom’ in the most sterile way possible and, as they day before, gradually comes back to her, she amends that assessment – whatever guests Ren and the likes of him usually entertain, she doubts they stay a long time. If anything, the room looks squeaky clean, as if everyone who had ever inhabited it had wanted to leave as few traces of their presence as possible.

Not daring to hope, she glances at her phone and then sags back into the covers with a defeated sigh. It’s minutes after six in the morning on an already warm summer day, she’s two days behind schedule and she still has no service. If she were a little more inclined towards conspiracies than she is, Rey might have suspected that it’s on purpose; that having no contact with the rest of the world is the preferred norm here. It would be a benefit to anyone who wants to eliminate any and all ways of being tracked down and everyone who visits this Maker-forgotten place would fit that description perfectly, if she were to hazard a guess from her scant impressions about it.

It’s that thought that forces her out of bed – that, and the faint smell of breakfast reaching her through the room’s open window. She’s still distinctly unclear on how many people actually live here, but surely they wouldn’t mind sharing? She still has money, at least, and despite his standoffish demeanour, Kylo had been surprisingly accommodating last night. She’s still in the same clothes she’d worn all day and the realisation makes her grimace, but there’s little to be done about it now. The fact that the most basic of necessities – like a toothbrush – had disappeared along with her car is almost more frustrating than the car itself being stolen and Rey does her best to calm herself down before she shows her face downstairs. She’d gone through worse in her childhood, frequently far worse; no matter how helpless she feels, this kind of lacking is nothing she hasn’t dealt with before. It’s far more crucial for her to be mindful of the rest of this household before worrying about toiletries, given how much everything about this place makes her feel like a fish out of water.

In the end, as is usual for her, hunger wins out. The unmistakable scent of food leads her down the stairs, through something between a living room and a bar where a few men, unlikely to be brothers given their varying ages and ethnicities, linger, and directly into a summer kitchen, unoccupied apart from Kylo and yet another man. They look nothing alike, but there’s no one apart from Ren and ‘his boys’ here, from what she’d gathered. It’s a chilling thought, how much less scared she is at the prospect of a family than she would be if she’d seen it as some sort of gathering place that belongs to a man with a motorcycle who had picked her off of an apparently deserted road and hadn’t even offered his full name in return for hers.

“Thanks for the breakfast, Kylo.”

“Fuck off, Kuruk.”

Despite the anxiety plaguing her, Rey stifles a laugh at his deceptively amicable tone and they both turn around, the stranger’s eyes widening with intrigue.

“You’re her, aren’t you? Our mystery guest.” He turns towards his brother, gaze turning calculating. “You didn’t make all that food for me, I gather.”

“When have I ever?” Kylo points her to the table in a gesture too decisive to inspire any argument from someone as hungry as she is. “Sit. We need to talk.” He absently bats his brother’s hand away from the pan where he seems to be making scrambled eggs. “Don’t you have anywhere else to be? Vicrul said his bike was acting up.”

“He won’t need it for another week, will he? Every time Snoke ends up here, we’re stuck for _days_. You should’ve just let that poor girl go home.”

“It’s not his fault,” Rey chimes in, her hesitance slipping away as she slowly feels herself slip into work mode, every interaction precious for gathering further information. “Your father said he was in a hurry and took me here. Kylo’s just been showing me around.”

Kuruk’s startled laugh reminds her eerily of the reaction she’d got from his brother just last night. “Is that right?” He’d been heading towards the door, but now strides back in, tilting Kylo’s head up with his index finger. To her surprise, he allows it. “Our _father_ brought her here? What are you up to, Kylo? Met our new friend here before, have you?”

“No.” It’s there again; that distance, as if he’s mentally checked out of the conversation already. There’s a tremor to his voice. “No, I haven’t been back to the city in years, I swear, I—”

“Good.” Kuruk’s hold turns gentler, but not overly so; not enough for Kylo to let himself breathe. “I’m glad.” A cruel smile stretches over his pursed lips. “Daddy’s always ready for another lesson if you need them, you know.”

“I do.” He pulls himself away so suddenly that the other man’s hand falls back by his side. “Vicrul’s bike—”

“I heard you the first time. I’ll fix it, or he’ll bitch about it forever. Speaking of forever,” he adds, propped against the doorframe, “deal with Snoke when you’re finished with whatever this is. I thought we were done with him for good.”

“So did I,” Kylo mutters as he slams two plates on the table with a little more aggression that strictly necessary. As soon as the other man is out of the door, he zeroes in on her, the assumption that he can keep going on with what he’d had in mind despite what she’d just witnessed written all over his face. Rey lets it happen – pressing the issue looks like it’s going to be a painful ordeal right now. “You said that you’re a journalist. You do realise that you can’t mention any of this to anyone, right?”

It’s not a threat, but it can be. It has been in the past; it’s clear as day and Rey nods her understanding diligently. She does her best to look appropriately intimidated, but the sheer terror in his eyes still haunts her. He’d sounded so lost; so helpless. It’s a feeling she’s intimately familiar with. _I haven’t been back to the city in years, I swear—_

It doesn’t seem to be enough of a confirmation for him.

“I mean it,” Kylo insists through a mouthful of scrambled eggs and the sort of sad, dry chicken meat that people with his physique tend to eat. “I don’t mean just in your article or to your boss or anyone else in Hanna City. I mean the people you’re going to speak to in Supremacy, too. No matter who you find to interview, no matter how much they ask you how you got there, don’t mention this place. Or my name, for that matter. To _anyone_.”

“All right.” Everything that has happened since yesterday feels like a fever dream; why not comply with the one demand made by the only person who’s made an attempt, half-hearted as it has been so far, to guide her through all of it? “I understand.”

“Please do. It’s dangerous to be here at all.” She makes to ask him what _here_ includes, but it’s quite obvious – all of it. The house, this road in the first place, Supremacy and the journey he’d promised her. “I’ll take you to the town’s borders and then you’re on your own. It’s for your own good. I don’t care how good of a sensation you think can come out of it.”

Indignation shoots through her, sharp and full of disbelief. “I’m not hoping for a _sensation_. There are people in danger there. _Children_.” She’s only trying to drive the point home to him, but the thought alone gets her riled up all over again. She doesn’t know this man – for all she knows, he might be in charge of everything she’s trying to get the world to notice; everything that’s wrong with this region. For all she knows, he could have killed her for snapping at him. He certainly looks capable of it. Her only comfort is that he _hasn’t_ and that he’d let her be last night as soon as she’d mentioned the children and the same suspicion from before, vague but steadily taking shape, rears its head again. Rey squashes it down for the time being. “I want _justice_ , not a good story. Just because you don’t care—”

“I do care.”

It’s such an abrupt interruption that it stops her mid-rant and Rey stares back, quieted by the solemnity in his voice. “I can tell you more about what you want to know than anyone in that shithole would ever dare.” His anger just flares up further at the incredulousness doubtlessly written all over her face. “You don’t know what it’s like on the outskirts of the city, do you? Your money and promises and reassurances that the police or social services or whoever else you’ve thought to call mean nothing here. It’s all just fighting for survival.”

His tirade leaves her breathless; what used to be a muddy, shapeless theory solidifying into something far more exact – and far worse than she’d anticipated. “Kylo, are you—”

As quickly as it had exploded, his temper subsides and he clams up. “Eat your food. It’s getting cold.”

~.~

Though she can see him sulking in the garden outside, Rey gives her host his space. It’s the right thing to do, regardless of all the questions itching to come out, and she struggles through the rest of her breakfast, even though the eggs and bacon, perfectly cooked as they are, feel like sand in her mouth.

It only makes sense, really. Despite the fleeting resemblance, the conclusion that Ren isn’t actually Kylo’s father is an easy one to come to. Blood isn’t always everything, of course – her own parents would have been able to attest to that if they hadn’t already given her up with ease years ago – but the way he seems to be treated by everyone else, like an experiment that could go wrong any minute for the most innocent of interactions, is proof enough. She’d only known any of these people for a handful of hours, but it’s a scene she had seen a hundred times over the years, in one home or another; the easy disregard for children’s wants and needs, the threat of being taught a lesson as soon as they’d step out of line. He’s far from a child, but he could have been here forever. And if the same can be applied to the rest of them—

 _All of those missing children_. No wonder Leia had wanted to press the topic further, personal investment or not. As far as Rey can tell, Ben Solo might have been in Supremacy for the last two decades. _No one is going to come, Rey. No one has come this way in years._

It doesn’t matter if he snaps at her again, she thinks; she _has_ to ask.

Rey makes her way past the garage – a room as old and mismatched as the rest of the house, with large, imposing metallic graffiti blacking out the peeling pin-up art below, doubtlessly the previous owner’s idea – and towards the backyard where Kylo is still sitting, his nose buried in a tablet. He locks it and tosses it on the grass next to him when he hears her approach, but Rey still catches a glimpse of a string of text messages on a platform she doesn’t recognise. Given the lack of service, the chances of Internet access are slim, so she doubts that it’s any kind of contact with the outside world. It only serves to embolden her further.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” he starts, eyes fixed on the horizon where the heat is already making the desert swim before her eyes, “but I assure you that it’s nothing as nefarious as you suspect.”

“If it’s at all nefarious, that’s still a problem; you realise that, right?” Silence. “I’m sorry for pushing you. It’s none of my business.”

“No, it’s not. I’m not a child.”

 _And the implications behind_ that _particular denial are not alarming in the slightest._ “You were once.”

“A long time ago.” She’s all too familiar with the sight of someone who wishes they were done talking but are clearly not and she waits patiently for it to come forward. “I was in a— tricky situation when I was younger. Snoke and Ren helped me out and took me in. That’s all there is to it.”

“How young?”

It’s simultaneously the best and worst thing she could have asked. He freezes again, eyes trained on the ground, and goes even paler than before. “Young.”

She won’t lure anything more out of him right now, that much is clear. Rey swiftly reroutes the topic. “I don’t understand. If your—” Guardians? Bosses? Despite his mockery, her first instinct does happen to be to call social services and ask for assistance. “If the people in charge here want to keep it all under wraps, why even take me in? Ren could have just gone past me. Instead, he took me here. He even told me his name.”

“Because he knows something you – and I – don’t. I haven’t figured it out yet, but it’s a mind game; he’s fond of those. There’s a reason I told you to stay away from me.” When she doesn’t budge, he sighs, resigned. “And he didn’t tell you his name; it’s nothing you can track him down with. Same with me and everyone else who lives here, so there’s no need for us to be cautious about it. _Ren_ isn’t a name.”

Rey lets her eyes trail over the tattoos up and down his arms, lingering over some of the undecipherable symbols wrapped into intricate designs. The possibility of this being a drug cartel feels so distant now that she’s seen so much more. While she doesn’t doubt that they earn their living through something not strictly legal – even if they’d wanted to, they’re not exactly drowning in lawful options all the way out here – there’s something far worse lurking under the surface. Her gaze zeroes in on one of the scrawls in the crook of Kylo’s elbow, a startling splash of black against his pale skin. It’s runic, but it’s just three letters and she can guess the meaning just fine in the light of what he’d just said. The majority of people she’d met wouldn’t bother tattooing their own family name on themselves. Then again, he’s nothing like the majority of people she’d met, so, “What is it, then?”

When he faces her again, his eyes are finally as lost as the rest of him looks. “Chaos.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only today: double feature! World building _and_ angst!  
> (As always, feedback is most welcome!)

It’s frightening; how much this place reminds her of home.

It’s frightening how quickly Rey goes back to considering Jakku _home_ , too, but she avoids dwelling on that – there’s plenty to do at Ren’s residence to keep her distracted and it’s altogether too easy to be reminded of her roots when she’s somewhere as derelict and forgotten by the world as her birthplace had been. The relentless, blistering heat, the hectic, directionless monotony of the local day to day life are all painfully familiar and she does her best to stay rooted in the present as the time passes.

(She assumes it does, at least – it’s what the clocks are telling her, but there’s no sign of anything ever changing, apart from the day and night chasing each other lazily.)

It’s another early morning and, as Kylo uses the hours before it gets unbearably hot to do his work in the yard outside, Rey lingers in stubborn hope of any sliver of information he’s willing to offer. It’s not much of a conversation as any question she poses is met, more often than not, with a curse or a request for a tool that he needs rather than an actual answer, but it’s not difficult to be persistent when she has nothing else to do.

“So _Ren_ is, what? The mystical power pushing the world forward? And your,” she fishes around for a proper word and, as usual, fails. It’s a conversation they’d had on and off for the last two days, but the interruptions from the rest of the residents don’t help, and neither does Kylo’s resolve to not be seen with her. “...leader named it after himself?”

“He named himself after it, more like. And— not really. I wouldn’t say it’s supposed to be a force of good. Or a force of evil, for that matter.” He runs a hand through his hair; a pensive gesture she’d seen in action every time he’d tried to speak of the ideology that’s supposedly his as well. “It’s just the natural order of things, and according to Ren, the natural order of things is for this— presence to consume and take what it pleases; burn down the world if it has to. We, its followers, have to be good representatives of that.” He chances a look around them, as if to make sure that they’re still alone. The rest of the Knights, as they apparently call themselves, tend to lurk around at all times, but it’s too early even for that; from what Rey had gathered from their daily schedule, they’re likely still asleep. Kylo might have followed that example if he hadn’t been this eager to keep away from them, she supposes. “And there’s more to it. The Ren— it manifests in people in something we call _the shadow_. Not everyone; a chosen few.” As she watches, he raises a hand, palm open towards her and Rey almost takes it as an invitation before she’s forced to startle away from where she’s leaning on the yard’s fence as yet another wrench she’d kept nearby in preparation is lifted gently in the air, floating away from her until it lands in Kylo’s fist. “Every living thing in the Universe is kept alive and moving by the Ren, but a small minority can work with it. All the Knights can; so do most of the people in Supremacy. It’s most prominent in me,” he adds, but it doesn’t feel like immodesty, coming from him, just a simple truth, “which is why I’m on such a tight leash. I had a feeling you’d want to ask about that as well.”

She would have, admittedly. Rey looks away. She has no choice but to believe him, given the display he’d offered, but even without it, the realisation that there’s more to the world than the mundane existence that most people are used to isn’t a surprise to her. She had seen it before – in people and events and sparking up her own fingertips when she had needed help the most; her body’s desperate last ditch effort to keep itself afloat. She had never given it a name – had assumed that the majority of what she’d heard had been legends – and it’s good to have that awareness solidified, even though, “So all these children—”

“Most of them, yes.” She had seen it in the Solos, too; in Leia’s most risky campaigns and the way they always miraculously work out. It’s no wonder her own son had disappeared and for a fleeting moment, Rey wonders if she’d ever made the connection. “There are false positives, sometimes, but it’s a rare thing. As far as I know, Snoke’s yet to come in touch with anyone who isn’t gifted enough for his tastes. As you can imagine, most children are eager to hear him out.” He packs his tools away and redirects his attention to a leather paint kit lying by his side, dusting off the brushes with meticulous attention. Even from the side, she can see his mouth twist into a sardonic smile. “It’s a dream come true when it happens. You’re eleven and you feel lost and alone and unwanted and suddenly, there’s someone willing to _help_. Someone who tells you they can teach you all about that power that everyone around you seems to be afraid of, without sending you away. Someone who promises to send you to people who would _understand_ because they’ve been through the same. By the time the wakeup call comes, it’s useless – you’ve never known any better.”

He’s going for a general _you_ , but it doesn’t quite work. _It could have been me_ , Rey thinks, part-horror and part-envy. It’s terrible of her, but she can’t help it and she’s long since given up on trying to rein in her worse impulses when it comes to the crippling fear of abandonment. Not being fed love means she’s learnt to lick it off of knives and if someone had offered, she would have gone with them without a second thought, she knows. “And this—awareness they have of their power can’t help at all?”

Kylo’s expression grows even more amused – and joyless – if such a thing is even possible. “Help them with what? To run?” He snorts a brief, derisive laugh at her nod and returns to his work, renewing the pain on the sides of the seat with such an attention to detail that Rey almost believes that it’s what he’s most focused on just now. “And go where? They aren’t using their real names anymore, their every movement is tracked. They don’t have an ID or a birth certificate or anything, really. People like that fall through the cracks. None of them ever return.”

 _No one is going to come_ , she remembers him saying, with no small amount of pity in his eyes despite his guarded expression. He would know, Rey supposes. No one had ever come for him in, “How old are you?”

He shoots an inquisitive glance in her direction. “Thirty one, I think. Did the Day of Concordance pass?”

“Two weeks ago,” she supplies, wandering somewhere between disturbed and horrified. _Twenty years_. She thinks of Leia again; of half-hidden framed pictures and quiet days of unspoken anniversaries and milestones and the gaping pit between the Solo family and the rest of the world whenever children are mentioned. She thinks of grief and pain and rage and wonders, for a moment, what it would have been like to be missed like this.

She hadn’t hoped for much when she had taken this assignment, but it feels different now that she’s got her hands on one of her potential targets. He’s not a child and she’s not in Supremacy yet, but this is it. He’s one of _them_. Had Leia hoped for the same, on some level? Could she, with some more shooting in the dark – with Kylo’s help, perhaps, no matter how adamant he is about keeping his distance – find the one lost child that, despite her Leia’s insistence of neutrality, matters to her boss more than any other?

“Twenty years,” she says, out loud this time. “And you never looked back? Never wondered what happened to your family?”

“No.” It’s too abrupt a denial to be anything but a lie and Kylo doesn’t look at her, too focused on the leathery bat wings he’s painting on the side of the bike. “I already know the answer to _that_.” Another smile, this time nearly bad enough to make her cry. “I doubt they noticed a difference.”

~.~

It’s not as difficult as she had assumed; earning her place in a world that she knows nothing about. Before Hanna City and the friends she’d found there and her wonderful, respectable job, Rey had proved herself worthy of surviving in the desolation of her home country day by painstaking day. She’s more than used to the dry heat of the desert and the endless struggle for any essentials she can get for herself, but it had never occurred to her that something like this can happen so close to civilisation; in a world that should, by all laws of the world, belong to the rich and privileged. Ren and his _Knights_ are much better suited to a place like Jakku and, when she says as much to Kylo, he sends her another one of those all-knowing looks she’s starting to both hate and anticipate.

“So that’s where you come from. I thought as much. That place breeds either murderers or philanthropists.”

He sounds like he’s not sure which type of desert dwellers he detests more. Rey bites back a harsher retort before she speaks again. “Met many people from Jakku, have you?”

“I’ve met enough.” It’s not really the descriptive answer she had hoped to bait him into, but it’s something. “We travel a lot, usually, when Snoke isn’t around. This is our home,” he nods back to the glorified garage behind them, “as much as any of us have one, but it’s not something we return to often. When Snoke comes, though—” He’s quiet for a moment, as he is whenever the man she had seen briefly on her first night here is brought up. “Trouble usually follows.”

What a man like Kylo Ren considers to be _trouble_ is hard to imagine, but Rey doesn’t linger on that thought for long. “And if you do decide to wander?”

“We don’t.” He keeps looking anxiously over his shoulder back towards the house and Rey is starting to develop the distinct feeling of being watched despite the lack of evidence of anything of the sort. They haven’t really gone far and as far as she’s aware, they’re well within the territory of what Kylo and his community seem to think is part of laying low, so it’s hard to imagine what’s driving his suspicions until he stops abruptly, dropping the pretence of picking up some cacti that one of the other Knights had apparently needed. “There are rules to this place, Rey. Not just for me, but for everyone else, too. None of this is optional. The fact that you’re here—”

He hesitates and Rey’s stomach drops. From the scarce time she had known him, he had always been as honest with her as his life would allow him – which is quite honest, considering that according to his own words, he has nothing to gain from keeping secrets. This is a lawless place as far as the Republic is concerned; it exists on no map and its citizens are nonexistent in the eyes of any institution she recognises. She hadn’t flinched when she’d heard about their ideology or about the serial child abductions or the complete lack of contact with the outside world. She hadn’t even been pushy enough – insistent enough – to offer him a way out when it had become clear that he isn’t looking for one. He had delivered all of the facts of his life with such devastating indifference that she had felt it would be cruel to do anything else. It all only makes this – his unease – all the more unnerving.

“It was an accident,” she assures him, though it doesn’t sound nearly as certain as she would have liked it to. “I told you; I thought it would be easier if I got off the highway—”

“Yes, and you found a convenient turn for a road leading towards the exact city you wanted to get to. A completely _deserted_ road, apart from you and a car thief that you never see or hear from again. It’s all right, though, because you miraculously happened upon Ren, who then invited you into his home.” She’s quiet at the acid condescension of his words. It’s a succinct retelling of what she’d gone through, even if she doesn’t particularly like it when the pieces are put together like this. “It’s just so convenient, isn’t it?”

“What are you saying? That the whole thing was orchestrated by—who, exactly? One of your colleagues?” It feels like too mundane a word for what they’re doing here, but it’s the only one she’s got. “Your leader? The Universe?”

“I don’t know.” It takes him a lot to admit it, but it seems to be less because he doesn’t like being caught in the wrong, as Rey would have suspected, and more because he’s terrified of the answers he does have. He had mentioned it a few times, purposefully off-handed; how he thinks this is a test and that it’s likely meant for him. She doesn’t know enough of his history to prove him wrong, but the thought that it might be her precisely that someone had tried to bring to him is as puzzling as it is worrying. She doesn’t _know_ this man, and the complete ignorance when it comes to any connection at all is clearly mutual. Meeting people like him had been part of the plan for her trip in this part of the country, but from what she’d heard so far, it could have been anyone else. It could have been one of the Knights, too.

 _Then again, perhaps not_. Kylo had brought that up, too – Ren’s unusual distrust of him and how much it still confuses him after years of nothing but unwavering loyalty. Despite all the other signposts of belonging, it’s not difficult to see that he’s the odd one out.

“I don’t know,” he repeats, a little louder, as if in response to her musings. “I don’t know why they’ve chosen me, other than the obvious.” He nods down towards his hand; an innocuous gesture now that he’s not summoning mystical powers through it. “And I don’t know why you’d be brought into it, if it was done on purpose. But, as far as the Universe is concerned—” Rey had meant it as hyperbole more than anything else, but now that he’d brought it up, she finds herself going breathlessly quiet. “—I do think it might have a plan for you. It’s a _feeling_ ,” he adds before she’s had the chance to ask, “nothing more. The kind you’d only really recognise if you’ve worked with the Shadow for most of your life.” He’d stopped, all of a sudden, eyes imploring as his hand extends towards her. “I can show you.”

It’s a request despite his unerring confidence, tentative and distant like everything about him, and Rey can feel the same unnamed impulse that had kept her by his side so far race through her as she nods, reaching out to meet him halfway.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More angst?  
> More angst.

What Kylo Ren calls _the Shadow_ turns out to be exactly that - shapeless and weightless and only vaguely resembling anything from the world she knows.

"It takes a while to get a proper feeling for it," he says, his deep voice piercing through her immersion in what Rey supposes is his impression of power handed over to her so that she can find her way around it. The more she tries to get a hold of it, the more it feels like something he's projecting onto her than any real instinct that she could possibly have for the power he possesses. "And it's much easier if you've been at it for years, but you've got it, somewhere deep down. I can tell."

"How?"

Because it's an unnerving idea, really; the fact that he can just know when someone is like him in something that still feels too difficult to define for her to even try and give the sensation a name. His best theory about the city she's trying to investigate boils down to this same power, too, and both of the people who seem to rule over his life had apparently had the same unerring pull of intuition towards him that he's describing right now.

"That takes years of practice, too, at least if you want to know what you're looking for." Her eyes are closed, but she can almost see him shrug and wonders, for a fleeting moment, if this is part of what he's describing or just her getting to know him a little better at an alarming speed. "The Shadow recognises itself in others, I suppose."

"So it's an outside force residing in your body?" If that _is_ the case, then she's all the surer that she'd never had a close encounter with anything like it before. Rey's world is a far tidier place than that - despite everything she'd gone through, everything she'd done to keep herself fed and relatively healthy and afloat of everything the world had always thrown her way, her body and mind had always belonged to her and her alone.

"You could say that. It's what people call it sometimes, too, other than the Shadow - the _Force_." She can hear the derision in his voice, but it's mixed with such an overwhelming amount of sadness that it almost makes Rey choke on it. It's another unfamiliar sensation - his feelings, the storm that reigns and rages and tears apart everything on its way, firmly hidden away beneath the surface of her body, invades her own mind with a startling strength. "It's what my family used to call it back before I— back before Snoke took me in. My uncle was proficient in any knowledge there was to be had about it, or so he claimed; my father was sceptical, my mother thought I could do countless better things in my life than get tangled up in this sort of mystical bullshit. They were all wrong, in the end, but it's the thought that counts." It doesn't, if his tone of voice is anything to go by, but Rey bites her lip before she can say as much. "It's not sinister, mind you. It can be, depending on how you use it, but that's always up to the person."

"But that goes for anything, doesn't it?" This is probably not the right time for this kind of discussion, but Rey can't help the curiosity that springs up in her just like always when she's presented with something she doesn't understand. A long time ago, in an entirely different world from the one she'd made for herself by now, she had been terrified of novelties of any kind, plagued by the conviction that she would never get back what she'd lost if she were to allow herself even the smallest of changes. "No matter what power you have over others, you can use it for either good or evil."

"Or for convenience." Her eyes snap open, as if by command, and Rey watches, mesmerised, as Kylo waves a hand with practiced nonchalance and brings the bike that had taken them this far out in the desert closer with a deafening creak. It's not a trick, that much she can see - the engine isn't on, he's nowhere near close to his vehicle, and yet it's moving towards them at a frightening speed, stopping only when he decides to make it so. "Not everything is black and white, no matter what the world you come from would make you believe. The Shadow - or the Force, if you prefer - is more of a vast grey area than anything else. As I said before, it's created the world we live in. What could be greyer than that?"

It's a fair enough point, she has to admit - if she believes him on the fact that the entire Universe is powered by a single entity, there's no way to imagine that it would only work in extremes. Nothing about the world she knows, no matter if it's here on Chandrila or back on Jakku, had ever been as clear cut as she would have liked it to be.

It makes her understand the concept a little better, too, even though, "I'm still not sure why you think this has anything to do with the children in Supremacy. Or me, for that matter."

"I did tell you that they were picked for a purpose, right?" At her nod, Kylo's shoulders slump in a way she knows all too well - everything he does is soaked in the mannerisms of someone who know they're about to deliver a blow. It had been a popular expression back in the foster system - she'd seen it far too many times to count. "Moving things and feeling what others feel is far from the only thing the Shadow can do. Sometimes, if you're particularly skilled - or, well, particularly talented - it's enough to manipulate a grown adult with little to no repercussions. You can even do it without anyone ever noticing. Such a power, in the right hands, en masse... Imagine the results."

She'd very much like not to. "The _right_ hands?"

He shrugs again. It's as helpless as anything she's seen him try to justify here; as helpless as he always seem to be when it comes to the men who had lorded over his life for so long now. "The hands who know what to do with the resource they'd been given. I know, I know," he adds before she'd had the chance to pick up steam, "children are not a resource. Neither are people in general. It's another rule that doesn't quite work here. If you really want to dive into the sort of business where someone like you has never belonged, you're going to have to learn to get used to these things."

For better or for worse, it's the final straw. The terrible, stifling compassion she always feels for him temporarily shrinks away to make place for indignation. "You know nothing about me."

"I know that there's a reason for you to take this as personally as you do. Not that others haven't tried, but they all give up eventually. Nobody cares enough to put their own life on the line, when push comes to shove. The fact that you do means that you're either insane, being blackmailed by your boss, or you've suffered through something similar - if not _quite_ as bad - in your life and don't want others to go through what you went through. It's admirable, but, piece of advice - if you want to see this through, you're going to have to stop letting your heart lead you to where it thinks you need to be. It's in the right place, I'll give you that," he says, and it feels like a strange, sickly mixture of pity, mockery and concern that she can't quite swallow, "but _you_ are not."

Rey stomps down on the righteous anger _that_ brings up, lest she manages to prove him right. "If not my heart, then what?" she challenges, far too exhausted by his speaking in riddles to hide her exasperation. "What do _you_ think should lead me towards success, then?"

It's the wrong question to ask, apparently, because it gets her the only answer she had got out of him ever since coming here. His smile is both vacant and a little vegentful; a lifelong lesson in restraint. "The Shadow, Rey. That's all there ever is out here.”

~.~

They had spent the day out in the desert, though under what excuse for Kylo's absence, Rey isn't sure. Now, as they make their way back to the house, it feels like it had been stolen time from a limited amount she's draining rather rapidly - like the children he had spoken about, had promised to take her to, as soon as the time was right, would slip right through her hands if she were to wait a little longer.

The idea of the life she'd left behind back in the city starts to plague her too, every time she takes a look at the endless stretches of empty, unpopulated land around them. It would be a while longer before anyone back home would figure out that something had gone wrong, but not much - before long, Leia would grow suspicious. Would they start an investigation, then, the way they had when her son had disappeared? That had never taken them very far, and the thought alone makes her shiver.

"Did you ever wonder?" She asks as they duck into the room and head up the stairs to where the guest bedroom she'd been settled into is. When Kylo whips around to look at her, question clear in his eyes, the non-sequitur becomes apparent enough for her to clarify, "About what happened after your disappearance. Did you ever ask?"

"No." Which question he's replying to, she doesn't know, and doesn't dare to question him further. "The person I was died the night I left the city. I was given a new life here. You can't go back to look for someone who no longer exists."

"You did exist to someone, though. And I know you said you didn't think they'd care, but that's rarer than you'd imagine." Bile rises in her throat, along with the kind of bitterness she had genuinely thought she'd got over by now. "You were a child, and you were ripped out of your family unexpectedly. That has to leave a mark."

"My family is far more _remarkable_ without me there, trust me." His smile is tight and practiced and familiar in a way she can't quite place. It feels a little like Mr Solo's annoyance when a particular parent or an overeager student in his piloting lessons class has driven him to the edge of his patience. Rey had made a point to never put herself in that position, and clearly, she'd been wise to do so - it's as discouraging as she'd expected it to be. "I'm sure it all made them fuss for a while, but things settled down soon after. My mother isn't an easily shaken woman. If I know her at all, her life hasn't changed much from what I remember as a child. Plus," he adds, voice biting in the way wounded animals always had been in the desolation she'd grown up in, "I wasn't ripped out of anything at all. I walked away. I know you're here to find the kind of children that would be sought after - investigated, asked for, _wanted_ \- and you're right to do so. They're the victims here. I'm not."

~.~

That night, she dreams of home.

 _Home_ being, this time around, Hanna City, but not the small flat that she’d rented on her company’s expenses when she’d first arrived. She dreams of a spacious house with family portraits lining the walls and the same dark eyes looking at her from every direction, generation after generation of the same features shifting mildly when new traits enter the gene pool. She dreams of Leia’s eyes, unrelenting but with a distant spark of tenderness when she’s telling her they must give up on a case. She dreams of the cynical curl to Han Solo’s mouth when he’s having a particularly bad day and the final straw, whatever it is, had finally made itself known. She dreams of seeking answers from an all-seeing power that slips away just before she can get just what she’s looking for.

She dreams of Ben Solo.


End file.
